


Coasting

by crqstalite



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: F!Shenko - Freeform, F/M, Ice Skating, Post-Destroy Ending, Post-War, Shenko - Freeform, Skating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:40:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25391014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crqstalite/pseuds/crqstalite
Summary: Kaidan takes Shepard ice skating.
Relationships: Kaidan Alenko/Female Shepard
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	Coasting

**Author's Note:**

> a middle of the day thought that turned into a oneshot. enjoy <3

Shepard was usually good at a lot of things. Surviving the impossible, fighting off grotesque monsters three times her size, patching together alliances that really shouldn't have been possible, win a war that had been lost plenty of times before. Hell, she'd done all of that within a few months only a year ago, and was still alive to tell the tale. Picking up talents came easy to her.

Usually.

She probably should've known something was up when Kaidan asked her to dress warm at the tail end of the year without telling her where they were going. Wary, she'd trusted him and donned a sweater and jeans (which he'd immediately shot down and sheepishly asked her to wear leggings with little explanation of why), curious of his intentions. Since getting out of the hospital a few months ago, she hadn't been out much. Seeing what there was to her new home on Earth piqued her interest.

Still, she hadn't expected to be clutching both a railing and his hand for dear life with literal knives strapped to her feet three hours later. She'd never been so glad to have quick reflexes, or she would've gotten a face full of ice a few times. Her nose was burning, her lips were chapped and teeth would be _just_ nearly chattering if she weren't so worried about falling flat on her face.

What was worse was the fact he also had a very nervous grin on his face out the corner of her eye, and she was getting rather suspicious that he'd lied when he said he'd been skating before. Her first tip probably should've been when he nearly tripped after putting the skates on trying to help her balance herself off the bench. If also not the second time when he'd been trying to coax her onto the ice. And, the third time when he actually had fallen when she'd used him to keep from falling herself.

Okay, that might've been her fault. She had apologized, trying to help him up while he'd laughed it off. And then she'd fallen. So they were just a pair of people, slowly making their way across the ice. She'd never been so glad not to be in anything with the Alliance or N7 insignia. They were just a man and a woman, making fools of themselves together.

"Knives belong in my hands, not on my feet, Kaidan." She repeats herself for the third time and grimaces, a perpetual frown on her face since he'd strapped the damn things on her feet. Center of balance, Shepard had apparently never met her.

"You're still upright, you're doing fine, Shepard." He reassures her. If not for the soft smile that he gives her, or the way he looks at her to begin with, she'd be off this rink in ten seconds flat, forget the fact she barely knows how to. Yet, this _was_ something he'd brought her out to do, supposedly because he enjoyed it, and she be damned if she gave up or refused him.

Well, at least until she managed to hurt herself again. There was already a bruise blooming on her bad knee after she'd fell. She was sure he'd fuss over it when they got home, as much as she doesn't want him to.

And, she hadn't even really understood the concept of ice skating before he'd told her about it. Growing up a spacer kid did nothing for her comprehension of Earth children's entertainment. Which is why she's entertaining the idea, but is having about zero of the fun that supposedly went along with it.

She shifts another two feet forward, trying to keep his words in mind, and nearly slips again before he pulls her back upright, "You're leaning too far forward."

"I thought you said to lean forward." She asks.

"Not that far forward."

Sighing, she glances over his shoulder. Kaidan follows her gaze, where she'd been watching a younger girl spin gracefully over the ice in the middle of the rink. To imagine she could shoot a Marauder's head off at a hundred yards and couldn't even glide any distance was disheartening, if not also embarrassing. Thirty three years old, a war veteran, and even the Reapers didn't have anything on the slippery surface beneath her feet. She raises her eyes to him again, "You've been skating before. Let's run with this visual learner thing, I step off the ice and watch you for a bit."

Concern flits through his eyes, "Shepard..."

"It's fine, I'm not going anywhere. Maybe I just need to watch instead of doing." And possibly sit to massage her knee for a bit.

"Shepard, you don't get it."

"No, I don't. So teach me then."

"No, Shepard," Red dusts his face, looking away from her for a moment before sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck, "It's been years since I've skated."

A lightbulb goes off in her head, looking down at their hands and then back up at him, "You dragged me out here in the dead of Canadian winter, knowing full well I'd never skated before, and also knowing you hadn't either?"

"I have!" He responds, "Just not since I was a lot younger. And I might've thought my muscle memory would've kicked in by now."

"You need me for balance as much as I need you, huh?"

"No," He pauses, flexing his fingers in between her's, "Maybe I just like holding your hand." Kaidan responds, as unconvincingly as she expected.

But she had to admit he looked a whole lot more comfortable here than she did. And if she was putting her well-being back into anyone's hands, it might as well be his.

She shakes her head, "So we're really both out here with about zero idea what we're doing? Not that we haven't done that before, pretty damn successfully if the Reaper free galaxy is anything to go by, but we could've had a lot more fun at home that didn't include a perilous sport I have no business participating in."

" _You_ , might have zero idea. You sound like you're expecting me to do what she's doing. I've held a gun longer than I've been on skates," He thinks to himself for a moment before looking at her directly, "You trust me, don't you?"

"I trusted you this morning, when you hadn't put your poor girlfriend in danger of breaking her nose," She pouts, "Y'know, the doctors are going to just love you when I come back with a broken bone, the only explanation being that you'd knowingly sent me to my icy demise."

"I'll make it up to you, I promise," He's still grinning when his grip on her hand loosens. Then it's gone and she nearly flounders, reaching out for the railing with both hands and grinding to a halt. Glaring at him when she feels safe enough to, he chuckles before skating just in front of her, stuttering for a moment when he slips backwards before holding his hands out to her again, "And I'm pretty sure those doctors love to have you there anyway. Might make patient of the month if you're lucky."

Tentatively, she releases one hand from it's death grip on the railing to reach over and let him take it, then the other as she slides forward into his grasp, "Can see the headlines now," She stutters, gripping his hands like a lifeline, " 'Great Commander Shepard hospitalized after easily avoidable skating disaster, Major Alenko suspected of the crime.'"

"Ow, first," He gestures to his hands as she loosens her hold only enough to know she's not breaking his fingers. If he really thinks she's about to let go, he's more delusional than the Illusive Man himself, "It's supposed to be _fun_. Second," He rubs his thumb over the back of her hands, eyes boring into her in a way that sets something in her aflame, "I've got you." 

It isn't as promising as marching her way across the ice back to where they'd left their things, nor offering the stability that she'd once had with the metal barrier, but he talks her through it long enough that she's standing upright fifteen minutes later and honest to God actually pushing off enough times to earn her a smile from him. It's comforting to have him so close, ready to pull her back up at a moment's notice (usually because she has a tendency to lean backwards). Staring into his whiskey colored eyes once he asks her to stop looking at her feet and focus on moving towards him, not grinding the skates into the ice, definitely puts her a little more at ease.

Not that she hasn't lost her balance another three or four times, but she hadn't fallen again when the sun was beginning to set outside the windows another half an hour later. He teases her, as she'd expected and retorts accordingly. Almost feels like their days on the SR-2, except without Harbinger looming over their budding relationship. She watches as his confidence comes back to skate backwards without an eye over his shoulder, giving her pointers like he had with her biotics. Her nerves are lot less shot when he asks her to let his hands go after spending a majority of the day laughing, as nervous as she is, when she manages to half glide, half walk over to him. It's not perfect when he steps away from where he'd been in front of her, as she nearly runs into a wall before grasping it at the last second, but it's world's better than what they'd started with.

It's late, that much she knows, but they make it around the rink a few more times, switching back to their original position with his hand in her's. Slow, frustrating at times as she keeps forgetting how to turn without picking up a foot and dragging it into the ice, but it's nearly romantic if she forgets she'd taken up his entire day doing something she watches a five year old excel at. There are more people there than when they'd started, and she's terrified to say she's actually exhausted. Good and tired, almost funny if she didn't remember the fact she fought off husks as heavy as her only a year ago. She still has a stupid smile on her face when they step off the rink, and she nearly falls flat on her face from the different motion, had it not been for a strong arm around her waist.

She's more careful on her way back to their bench, running a hand through her hair as Kaidan pulls their things out their locker. She places her jacket over to her side when she falls back on the seat, sweat still beading on her forehead.

"Then I'm guessing you enjoyed today?" He asks, bending down to undo her laces. She nearly tells him off, to just let her do it herself, but she was more likely to get tangled in them before getting a foot out. And, he was a nice sight, "Knife shoes aren't so bad, huh?"

"If you consider toddling across the ice like a child fun, sure. Oh wait, apparently there are children who can skate circles around me," He raises an eyebrow before she relents with her mild hate of the sport, "Look, skating, not so much. I belong in space, with insurmountable odds against us and mag boots. _But_ , I enjoyed spending the day with you."

"Thanks Shepard, that's sweet of you." He avoids her knee almost like he knows, before gently pulling off one of her skates.

"You skated a lot before you enlisted?" She asks, while he starts on the other foot. 

"To be honest, my sisters were better at it than I was. One wanted to be a professional figure skater, I just got dragged along to her practices when I was younger, and they let me on the ice between sessions," He shrugs, "Wasn't a pastime, but I got good enough at it that I wasn't breaking everything when I got out there."

"So you brought me out here why? Especially if there even the _chance_ I'd end up with my mortal enemy again?" She narrows her eyes when he looks back up at her with a half amused, half exasperated expression.

"Hospital beds aren't that bad."

"When they only fit one disgruntled war survivor, they are. Bonus points if they strap you in for months at a time with nothing but old vids to watch because you only get one channel. And Monica is more interested in the, and I quote, _'sweet Major that keeps coming by'_ than she is in anything I have to say."

"Right," He snickers, manages the other one off, and she places her feet back on the ground, cringing as she realizes her socks are wet, "Couldn't bring you to a shooting range, and I'm pretty sure you'd be pissed if I brought you to a pottery shop."

"Aw, you know me so well, as much as I'm pretty sure that's code for 'Shepard's a bull in china shop'," She stops him just before he stands, placing a hand just against his jaw and kisses him, "Thanks for today though. As many times as the rink tried to take me out, I like being with you. Without bullets flying over our heads."

"Love you too," He kisses her again, then standing, "And you just took out my idea for next Friday. Here I thought you'd like the idea of paintball."

She gives him the most quizzical look, trying to figure how the words fit together and why. She really needed to start reading up on this stuff if domesticity and odd Earth games were the new name of the game, "...paintball?"


End file.
